Long Live the King
by AmazingGraceless
Summary: Lion King-based Harry Potter story where the Boy-Who-Lived just couldn't wait to be king.
1. Can You Feel the Love?

**AN: This is my piece as a reserve chaser 2 for Round 9 of the Quidditch Fanfiction League. Prompt was to use the _Lion King_. Additional prompts include the word "clandestine" the object of a broken wand, and the quote from AVPM, "Okay is wonderful." AU where 1) James Potter is the actual king of Wizarding UK, 2) Harry is eleven when his parents die, and 3) "Power the Dark Lord knows not" is expanded upon. Wordcount is 2,079.**

* * *

"Stay silent, and don't come out no matter what, no matter what you hear. I'll come get you," she had promised, giving him a kiss on the forehead. She had smiled despite the dangerous situation and left him, her thick red waves tickling his face for a moment.

He'd nodded, obedient to her every word. Now, he shivered in fear and anticipation in the closet. Upon leaning back, he fell into a passage. Afraid, he crawled into it, fleeing the palace he'd lived in his whole life. He ran as soon as he was in the light of day, and kept running until he fell to the ground in pure exhaustion.

Once, he'd been a prince of the magical world. Now he was a nobody in the middle of a world without magic.

"I was wondering when you'd wake up," the boy said in an overly loud voice.

"Where am I?" Harry asked in his low, posh accent, a bit of a contrast to peasant-like accent of the boy.

"Number Four Privet Drive, ain't it?" the boy said, looking at Harry as if he were stupid.

"Where's that?" Harry asked, not remembering the address, having no idea where that was.

"MUM!" the boy shouted, looking afraid of Harry.

"What is it, Dudders?" asked a woman dressed impeccably. Her dress was a pastel lace nightmare, her feet almost completely vertical in the heels, her blond hair in close-cropped curls.

"He doesn't know where Privet Drive is," Dudders said.

"Of course, he wouldn't," the woman said looking Harry up and down. "My dratted sister's good-for-nothing nephew—"

"You're my Aunt Petunia!" Harry realized with a start. The woman just scowled at him coldly.

"I got the letter—my dratted sister and her dratted husband went and got themselves killed by some wacko!" she snapped.

Harry felt like the floor was dropping out from under him as the memories of the day before.

"It's all my fault," he moaned, remembering the prophecy he'd heard about from overhearing the adults talking. "It's all my fault. I good as killed them."

"Good, I'm glad we have something straight," Aunt Petunia said with a cruel satisfaction. "And I know how you'll pay for it. You get to eat and stay here, but you have to do our chores. Understood?"

"Understood," Harry agreed, feeling ashamed of himself.

"One more thing," Aunt Petunia said, before Harry could do anything else. "Give me your wand."

Hesitantly, Harry gave her his wand. It felt like he was giving away the last true piece of himself. She observed it in her blood-red talons then snapped it into two. Harry's lightning reflexes caught the pieces as he cried out, making the same sorry sound as an Augurey.

"None of that. . . You know what," Aunt Petunia said hastily.

* * *

So began the next six years of Harry's life. He slowly began to forget of being a magical prince in a magical castle. He learned to not ask questions with the fear of Aunt Petunia and his cousin Dudley's cruelty. He lost himself in the grueling work. He didn't want to remember the wizard Prince, with the parents that had sacrificed their lives for him to exist. He was half-starving and unloved, yes, but he deserved it, didn't he?

He was at first an oddity the Dursleys resented, but soon he was the scapegoat of the neighborhood. Strange things happened, yes, dark things. It was said that snakes would talk to him, that things would move, that the shadows would crowd around him.

Screaming in his sleep, carrying his broken wand—all of this was eccentric, yes, but he got by. He just wanted to forget it all, leave it all behind. But there was a reminder in the air. It was as if the Earth itself knew that the wrong King was sitting in the Seelie palace up the hill. People often disappeared or died in strange, mass accidents.

* * *

It was the day before Hallow's Eve, the one after his seventeenth birthday. It was painful, thinking that he'd been a man in the Seelie Palace. He awoke tangled from the sheets in a sweat at the crack of dawn. He threw on his clothes and ran a comb—he'd salvaged it from the trash and washed it—through his longer black hair, making sure his black bangs covered his scar—a scar Lord Voldemort had marked him with the first time, according to his father.

He put his broken wand in his pocket and went on one of his clandestine walks around the neighborhood, helping people in secret with his magic—getting cats down from the trees, stopping elderly men from tripping on their way out to their cars and the like.

Despite his shady reputation, no one ever questioned him as a source for their good fortune. As he observed the pink-tinted clouds above, he was caught off-guard by screams.

In a flash, he was running towards a man lying with his chest open on the ground, bleeding everywhere. A young woman dressed all in black with her hair in a braid ran at the other man all in black, and a red jet of light came out of a wand she held. The man turned to dust.

Afraid for the other man, Harry ran to him and used his power—the power the Dark Lord knew not that he'd been born with. The power that allowed him to survive the Killing Curse once. Indeed, as the green light jetted from his hands, it restored the other man to life.  
He stared at Harry, wide-eyed as he propped himself up on his elbows.

"Obliviate."

Harry looked at the young woman, and realized with a start that she was a girl—could only be sixteen at the oldest. Something about her features seemed familiar. Upon eye contact, the girl's brandy-brown eyes widened. Her lips parted to speak when the man on the ground interrupted.

"What am I doing here?" the man demanded.

"You tripped down your driveway—you might want to go call a doctor if you got a concussion," the girl advised.

"I will," the man said, strangely compliant. Harry and the strange girl both watched as the man walked off.

When the door to Number Seven Privet Drive slammed shut, the girl about tackled him to the ground in a hug.

"Harry Potter, I'd know you anywhere!" she shrieked in a voice uncharacteristic of her cool demeanor before.

"Who—" Harry looked into her brandy eyes and recognized a girl of ten in her place. "Little Ginny Weasley?"

"It's been a long time," Ginny said grimly, letting go. Harry couldn't help but steal a glance at her. She'd been sort of cute when they were eleven, not too hard on the eyes, but now—

Her eyes caught his, and he looked away, blushing. Out of the corner of his eye, though, he thought he saw her blushing too.

"What's it been like?" he asked.

"Horrible," she said quickly, and he could see her mind whirring—it was always obvious on her freckled face. "You need to come back. We all thought you were dead!"

"I'm not," Harry said cautiously, aware of his own guilt resurfacing in his throat. "And I left that world behind a long time ago."

"Your people are suffering," she said with a stern frown. "How are you letting it happen?"

"I couldn't save my parents—how could I save the kingdom?" he demanded.

"The power the Dark Lord knows not," she said, nodding towards Number Seven. "You just used it."

"Ginny, I don't even have a wand," he said, and he brought out the broken pieces from his pocket. Ginny looked down at the wand, up at Harry, and then scanned the perimeter.

"The muggles are coming," she said in a whisper. "I'll come for you at nine tonight. Is that alright?"

3m ago

Harry found himself nodding. She smiled in satisfaction like she did when they were little and she got Harry or Ron to do her bidding and turned away.

* * *

Tired and bruised from his cousin's cruel hands, Harry stumbled into the closet, falling back on his cot. He checked the clock, the only glow in the complete darkness. He had ten minutes before Ginny would arrive. He vowed to get some sleep. He felt like he'd just closed his eyes when he heard her whisper.

"Harry. . . Harry, come on." He moaned, tired from the chores.

"Oh, come on, don't make me wake you up the way I did when we were little," she said teasingly. Before Harry could do anything, even if he wanted, he heard the cupboard door open and heard the gasp Ginny gave whenever she saw something unjust.

Her fingers, warm like the fire within her, danced lightly over his bruised arm.

"Harry," she said softly.

He forced himself to sit up. He couldn't see her in the darkness.

"Let's go out to the back garden," he said decidedly. He felt her hand take his, and he drew upon her strength to stand. They walked through the eerily clean and perfect Dursley household until they were in the perfectly mowed grass that Harry had done in the surprisingly hot noon.

He sat down with an oof like an elderly man. Ginny glanced at him concernedly and sat in front of him.

"Let my hair down, will you?" she asked with a look of mischief and innocence at the same time—an expression so perfectly Ginny. Harry nodded, then realized she probably couldn't see it.

"Alright," he said. He tugged off the black hair tie and began gently unraveling the solid fire that was Ginny's hair.

"What's the real reason you won't come back?" she asked gently.

Harry felt his throat constricting.

"I see a king inside," she said. "Why won't you be the king I know you are?"

"It's my fault," he admitted as he gently tugged out the braid. He couldn't help but admire the silky texture. "It's my fault my parents are dead."

"Don't say that," Ginny chided gently, turning her head and interrupting the un-braiding process.

"It is!" Harry protested, meeting her glare straight-on. "If I wasn't born, if I wasn't the boy of the prophecy—"

"Then no one could defeat Voldemort," she said seriously. "It's his fault Lily and James are dead. Not yours."

Harry hadn't accepted that truth before, but coming from his swan childhood friend, it hit with a certain impact. He looked down at his hands before returning to the unbraiding, almost finished.

"What do I have to do?" he asked.

"Kill Voldemort. The rest will bow to you," she explained. "But not tonight."

"Huh?" Harry found himself confused as she turned around, brandy-eyes bright, her fiery hair around her shoulders as she pulled off her leather jacket, revealing a tight black tank top.

"We've got tonight," she promised as her hands went to his face.

* * *

"I think our mothers meant for us to marry," Ginny said as they lay in the grass, staring at the stars, her hand holding Harry's.  
"Hmm?" he looked over to her.  
"Well, Mum confessed the other day that if you'd lived, we would've been wed at seventeen," she said.  
"Are you engaged to anyone?" he asked, remembering the court custom.  
"Draco Malfoy, the ferret," she spat venomously.  
Harry felt jealousy rising to his chest, then relaxed. She'd chosen him, hadn't she?  
"Are you feeling alright?" she asked after a moment.  
"I'm okay," Harry said. "Is that alright?"  
Ginny looked Harry in the eye. "Okay is wonderful."

* * *

Harry stood in the burning hall. Everyone had fought for the returning King.

But now it was Might is Right versus Might for Right. His green eyes met Voldemort's red as he remembered his mother's death.

"Long live the king."


	2. My Lullaby

When the battle was over, and he had reclaimed his throne, Harry snuck away for a moment to explore the palace he hadn't returned to for six years. His fingers trailed over the cool stone walls of the Seelie Palace. The memories of a life where he hadn't been beaten and bruised by his cousin and hadn't been half-starved and alone flooded back to him. He knew these halls like he knew the back of his own hands.

Indeed, the ruins caused by the fight were restored to their former glory by his very presence, the Potter blood within him reversing the clock of the past six years.

Harry approached the griffin statues that guarded the chambers of the Royal Family. They chirped merrily upon seeing him, nuzzling his hands and eagerly opening the doors. It seemed even the castle itself knew who the true King was.

A small smile appeared on his face as he raced up the stairs with the vigor of his eleven-year-old self. Yet when he came up the stairs, the apartments had clearly been redecorated. He remembered warm, bold colors like the Gryffindor crest-his family's traditional house. The apartments were in black and blue-green, cold and eerie, with ebony skulls and other such decorations in a similar vein.

Books and papers scattered everywhere, and Harry couldn't quell his curiosity, and he entered what had been his parents' bedroom. It had the overall aesthetic of the previous things he'd seen, but the first warning bell was the open closet. While there were the wizard's black robes, there was also a dress with a corset and other very feminine articles of clothing. . .

His train of thought was broken by a baby's cry. Disturbed, Harry searched for the source of the cry, and quickly found it in his old bedroom.

In the room was a cradle in the center, under the old skylight. And in the cradle was a baby. Harry instantly picked up the child, holding it how he remembered his mother telling him how to hold a child. The baby began to soothe a little more, especially as Harry began singing a lullaby-in Parseltongue.

He slowly began to carry the baby out to the living room of the Royal Family, and in there stood Ginny. He looked up to her to see her shocked face.

"What is that?" she asked, her eyes wide.

"A baby," Harry answered. "His."

"I had no idea, how-" She was clearly trying to work it out as several members of the Order of the Phoenix rushed up to check on the rightful King.

"Is everything alright up here?"

Harry turned to Remus Lupin, his childhood tutor and one of his father's best friends.

"We found this baby in the chambers-"

Everyone looked shocked.

"I had no idea-"

"-how-"

"I didn't think the snake was capable of sexual reproduction, honestly-"

"So no one knew that she existed?" Harry asked.

A chorus of "no's" filled up the chambers.

He hadn't expected his first edicts to start now. But he was the King and he had to make the decision about what to do with the child of Lord Voldemort. He wasn't heartless, he wouldn't murder the kid! He wasn't going to dump it on some commoner either!

He glanced at Ginny, and an idea popped into his head.

"Ginny, is Mrs. Weasley-"

"She's still around," Ginny answered, and he knew that she'd had the same thought.

"Maybe she- or Andromeda Black?" Harry asked.

"We're both here, you know," Molly Weasley said as she stepped up. "And I'll raise her like she's my own."

"Are you sure?" Harry asked. "If you don't want to-"

"I will raise her," Molly said, raising her eyebrows as she took the baby from Harry.

"You know the baby's a-"

"Yes," Molly said.

"Delphini," Andromeda Black added. "She was my sister's child."

A silence was cast over the group. Molly then sighed.

"I'd best go find the boys and tell them the good news," Molly said with a smile. "Ginny, are you coming?"

"In a bit," Ginny promised, looking to Harry again.

Molly, Andromeda, and most of the others left the room. The only members remaining were Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, and Severus Snape.

"I see that you have returned," Snape said in his usual grim monotone. "Your Highness, I recommend that you take a look at how the magical world has changed. You may have stormed in and reclaimed your throne, but you have no idea how to run a country."

Harry forced himself to keep his composure.

"I'll learn to, then," Harry said.

"Easy enough as barely an adult with no experience," Snape sneered. "Your father was the same way, a twit who thought he could run a country because he was oh-so-noble and had a crown on his head-"

"What the hell are you talking about, Snivellus?" Sirius cried.

"King James was a great king!" Ginny snarled, to Harry's surprise. "He cared about his people! He's better than the king we had!"

"He was only as good as he was because of his consort," Snape said with a lot of obvious discomfort. "She actually had a brain for such things! Your father, Your Highness, was a dunderhead who couldn't-"

"Getting angry isn't going to help anyone," Lupin interrupted. "I think you've done enough, Severus. We'll try this again tomorrow?"

Snape just flicked his came and stormed away.

Harry's attention flicked back to the others when Sirius hugged him.

"Harry!" he said joyfully. "I always knew you were still alive, I knew-"

"Thanks, Padfoot," Harry said, relieved to see his childhood mentors again. "I only hope that I don't screw up."

"You won't," Sirius assured him. "You're like James and Lily-a smart, talented young man who's got his heart in the right place. Follow it, and everything will work out just fine!"

Harry smiled.

"And you've got us and Severus to guide you," Lupin added. "You're not quite on your own, after all."

"Thank you," Harry said, meaning it more than he ever thought he would in his life.


End file.
